Pentatone has packaged together the two volumes of Schubert recorded by Julia Fischer and Martin Helmchen in 2009. The performances have lost none of their allure in the intervening time (though there are some careless inaccuracies in the listings on the booklet and back cover), with readings that continue to engage and delight. This is a true in the youthful Sonatinas as in the larger-scale mature works.

The Sonatinas come across best when given with an artless simplicity. Grumiaux was a master of this and he remains a hard act to follow. Fischer gets closer than most to the spirit of the great Belgian both in the First Sonatina and in the fervent opening movement of the Second. Fischer and indeed Widmann seem to see this as a work of Classicism. I particularly like Fischer and Helmchen in the finale, playful but utterly focused.

In the Rondo, D895, Fischer and Helmchen seem to focus more on the moments of introversion. As for the extraordinary Fantasie, D394, the pianists set the scene in quite a different way. Helmchen draws attention to Schubert's harmonic revelations. In the same work's Andantino, Fischer/Helmchen conjure a lustrously haloed quality, while in the finale's muscular Allegro section Fischer never becomes rough-toned.